Last month, a headline appeared in the Hornsey Journal – a headline that would have been funny had its subtext not been so dispiriting. Stamped across the top of the page in stark, Nimrod Bold lettering were the words: ‘Campaigners: Hands off our failing school.’

Just think about that for a moment…

Futures are being blighted. Horizons are being limited. Generations of children are being let down. And yet the response of those ‘campaigners’ to an attempt to rescue the situation is ‘hands off.’

‘Hands off’ the unacceptable waste of talent.

‘Hands off’ the chronic, ingrained educational failure.

‘Hands off’ our failing school.

The school he refers to is Downhills Primary School in Haringey. As already noted on this site what is particularly disappointing is that the local Labour MP David Lammy is backing the campaign to let the school keep failing.

On Monday, Lammy is speaking at a protest meeting at the school – alongside Fiona Millar, Christine Blower and Alasdair Smith of the Anti Academies Alliance and the Socialist Workers Party. Read all about it in Socialist Worker.